Hail To Old Swarthmore!

Swarthmore College, my apartment's alma mater, sent a fundraising solicitation to my girlfriend earlier this week. On the front of the postcard is a wonderfully picturesque photo, similar to the one above, of the belltower just to the right of its lush central lawn, at sunrise. It makes me miss campus. On the back is the ask. It says, "Remember the nights you stayed up so late you saw the sun rise over Swarthmore? Help today's students benefit from the same transformative education you enjoyed. Make your Annual Fund gift before the fiscal year ends on June 30!"

Huh? Maybe it should read: "Remember those night you were unhappy, synthesizing five books into one essay in one week so your seminar's fellow classmates would skim it in the night before class? Oh, you were trying to forget those grueling nights of work and focus on the wonders of learning and socializing and sitting outside on mid-April afternoons? We can't understand why. But now that we've reminded you of them, how about giving money to inflict that pain on someone else?"

Not that I ever watched the sun rise at Swarthmore. Sure, I worked very late some nights, but was reasonable about getting some sleep, and I've never "partied" that late before. But shouldn't Swarthmore's fundraisers accentuate the positive when they're asking for your money? Who wants to write a check after being reminded of such a valley?

My girlfriend donated $30. (In full disclosure, she says she agrees the postcard is poorly conceived, but as someone who works in development, she wants to be magnanimous.)

Damn Straight, Bill

New York Times executive editor Bill Keller spent the past week in Iran, covering the country's highly suspicious, revolution-inducing presidential election. Seeing his first byline from Tehran, on June 14, was certainly surprising. Keller built his career as a Times correspondent in Moscow and Johannesburg, but the executive editor of the New York Times was out in the streets, carrying a notebook and pen in his hands? It's something akin to Steve Ballmer sitting down in the adjacent cubicle to work on Outlook's programming code.

Keller quickly proved why he's won a Pulitzer Prize and risen to be the Times' executive editor. While every U.S. reporter, of the few who were/are there, covered the (incredibly important) events in Tehran, Keller headed to Isfahan. When I saw the dateline, I had to type "Isfahan" into Google to learn where it is. Turns out it's Iran's third-largest city, 340 kilometers south of Tehran. Iran is much more than Tehran; simple concept, no? Keller actually thought of it, in the midst of revolt, and he sent this insightful dispatch: the protests there are more violent and the policing much more harsh.

When asked about traveling to Iran, Keller said: "I've had a few bizarre vibes from people outside the NYT who are puzzled by my presence in Tehran. Do people in the media crit game really think editors are supposed to be desk jockeys who never go get a sense of the story? Or is the idea that when a big, exhausting news breaks visiting editors should hole up in the hotel and let the reporters do all the work? Weird." (Quote via Romenesko.)

Damn straight. Any good company's foundation is the content produced by its imaginative, intrepid and intelligent staff. Good managers get it. Keller gets it. That's why he heads to the world's fifth-most (seventh-most?) dangerous country for its momentous election, and why he endlessly defends the country's (world's?) best news product, even when he looks bad on "The Daily Show" because of it. Keller is out there, while the Huffington Post, Gawker et al whine about it from the Lower East Side and create nothing original.

Newspapers are dead. You're worse off for it. Long live newspapers.

Update: Iran's Islamic regime has essentially crushed the opposition. Watching events unfold the past three weeks, I couldn't help think if George W. Bush were still president whether his administration would push a regime change. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

Feels Like a Hit

Much has been written about how excellent and accessible Animal Collective's newest record, "Merriweather Post Pavilion," is. Embarrassingly enough, I've only heard a little of it, and very much liked it. However, I always thought their 2005 record, "Feels," was the approachable breakthrough. The opener, "Did You See the Words?", has these wonderful surges of vocals; the next song, "Grass," jumps up, down and all around; and "The Purple Bottle" is what I imagine a 29th-century saloon would sound like.

Maybe it took four more years than it should've, but good for those guys for breaking through. It's actually remarkable how high they've reached, in terms of size of the venues, number of records sold, etc. A friend who saw their show in town recently -- very loud bass, intense visuals, good music, he reported -- marveled at how popular they've become. He's right. As alluring as Animal Collective's music can be, there's something inherently disruptive about it -- the unsettling possibility, or threat, of something unknown lurking around the corner is a defining characteristic, like their sound is a good horror movie. (Not that I like horror movies.)

Despite the whooping carnival antics in their sound, they've reached crowds and a status that blow far past the Pitchfork-driven blog hype that lasts six months before the band becomes irrelevant, sometimes deservedly. (Wavves and Passion Pit, for example, are now experiencing this.) Even when they're on "Letterman," a great feat itself, they have to do something subversive. This time it was having four people in full body suits dance as if they were trying to exit a human-sized egg. (See video above. After the performance, Letterman asked Paul Schaffer if he had candy for the trick-or-treaters.)

To quote my friend, "There's an element of the Pitchfork mob mentality that contributes to their popularity, but there's also definitely something more to the music than that." He's right again. What is that "something more"? I think it's the general yearning we have to want something challenging and unsettling from our arts. We can take the easy road, but in the end, I think we enjoy the provocative road more.

Farewell, Norman Brinker

A dead man can't be libeled. But trashing one is also in very poor taste, so I'll try to be temperate in my remarks about the death of Norman Brinker, who turned Chili's into one of the leading national chain restaurants in the casual dining industry.

I never heard of Brinker before his death earlier this week, at the age of 78, but what he developed is a symbol of what is wrong with how and where we, as a country, spend our money. The abundance and popularity of restaurant chains such as Chili's -- Applebee's, TGI Friday's, etc -- never ceases to amaze me. Sure, the food is generally very mediocre, overly greasy and a mishmash of way too many flavors in each dish, but there's something much more elemental and deeply disheartening about them.

For the sizable number of such restaurants in the industry, it's remarkable how they're all the same. Each, of course, claims to have a distinct personality, but, in the end, are essentially identical: Menus that hew as close to the middle of the spectrum as possible, with manufactured nostalgic knick-knacks on the walls, mildly cheery waiters and waitresses, neon-colored alcoholic drinks and free refills for soda. They're inexpensive, sure, but no more than $2 or $3 cheaper per meal than eating at a locally owned, similarly casual restaurant.

Furthermore, most are located in the "outdoor shopping centers," or whatever you want to call them, that have proliferated the past 10 years that have a Target or Wal-Mart, home furnishing store, electronics store, sporting goods store and a couple of these restaurants. At best, they're in a strip mall directly off a highway. Either way, there are endless parking spots. Wherever they are, they are part of the development genre that continuously draws people away from downtowns, when, really they're no more than several minutes' extra drive. Even the parent companies that own these restaurants, Darden Restaurants et al (and they own several each, to "diversify," which is an inherent contradiction here), all seem to be in suburban Florida, surely in distant office parks, compounding sprawl.

So, what compels people to patronize these restaurants? The only reason I can think of is the mirage of convenience, spun through snappy marketing, has replaced the idea and pleasure of authenticity. Whoever can figure out how to break us out of this morass will be a very successful and deservedly influential person.

The Lights Came On And Your Voice Went Low

And so it happened again, this time at the Middle East, which was surprisingly nerve-wracking. I think the final photo is hilarious because it shows how unpolished I am at playing my instrument, and how I need to stare so intently at it while playing to be sure I don't miss notes. (The bassists in the other two bands, both amateurs as well, certainly didn't have to do this.)

Please let me know if you want a recording of the performance. We taped it and the result actually sounds pretty good.

Why I'd Rather Pay A Higher Gasoline Tax Than A Higher Sales Tax

Inspired by a great, newly discovered blog, I'll delve back into a topic that makes all of my readers head somewhere else: Massachusetts state politics. Little about state affairs these days comes anywhere close to inspiring or even serving as a fuzzy representation of good government. But what else can one expect when Salvatore DiMasi became the third consecutive House speaker to be indicted on federal charges and many of his former colleagues defended his record? (Great story by J.J. Huggins, by the way, one of the state's most underrated reporters and one of the nicest guys there is.)

However, one policy proposal remains that I still hope will be enacted sometime in the near future: a 19-cent-per-gallon increase in the state's gasoline tax. Gov. Patrick has pushed it for several months, but it has been routinely thwarted by the Legislature's leadership. First, members said they'd consider raising it by a smaller amount, but now have dismissed it altogether. Instead, as part of next fiscal year's budget, they voted to increase the state sales tax from 5 percent to 6.25 percent. (Patrick, in turn, has said he'll veto that hike if certain aspects of state government aren't first reformed.)

Obviously, everyone's objects to paying any higher tax, but if we want a certain level of services -- good public schools, state parks, care for the disabled, etc -- we have to pay for it. The post's title beats me to the punch on which one I think is better, but here's why:

Raising the sales tax only perpetuates Massachusetts' dysfunctional government. The money from it isn't devoted to any specific cause; it only fuels a bloated bureaucracy so it can continue lurching forward. Sure, within that monstrous bureaucracy are some talented people who staff good programs, but it's such an opaque, incomprehensible structure that no citizen can ever wrap his head (or arms) around it, which only engenders disbelief, mistrust and, eventually, pure anger. When three consecutive House speakers are indicted, why would anyone want to give more money to the enterprise they lead? Usually, I argue that a slightly larger tax does not drastically change people's spending habits -- are you really not going to eat at a restaurant because the bill is $25, instead of $23? -- but I think raising the sales tax actually has that effect. The next time I'm buying anything at least as big as a TV, why would I patronize a Massachusetts store when I can head to New Hampshire, a 35-minute drive away, and save at least $25? Appliance retailers should be very mad about this. I'm sure they are.

On the other hand, Patrick's proposal to raise the gasoline tax fixes two specific and pressing problems: the state's poorly funded public transportation and its poorly maintained infrastructure. Paying more for gasoline will bring tangible results in stable T fares, newly paved roads and repaired bridges. We know where the tax dollars will go. (Here is the administration's explanation for how each of the 19 cents would be used, which I think is very helpful.)

Furthermore, the proposal uses tax policy as it was designed: to encourage people to do the things that help society and dissuade them from doing things that don't. Circa 2009, it is irrefutable that the U.S. needs to confront global warming, climate change, and how many miles it drives per day, which are obviously intertwined. A higher gasoline tax promotes more efficient cars, public transportation and hopefully a lifestyle more cognizant of how tethered to cars we are. Ideally, this should be tied to a corresponding decrease in the income tax and happen on a federal level, but Patrick isn't that courageous and D.C.'s partisanship has essentially destroyed the possibility for true leadership in Congress, so I'll bite the bullet and take what I can get.

The author of the aforementioned blog would surely argue against the merits of a higher gasoline tax, but if he ever were to read this, perhaps I could persuade him that at least it's better than the sales one.

Ouch

Which is a sadder sign of a company's demise: Requiring that all of its employees take at least a 7 percent temporary pay cut or closing its office cafeteria and saying it can no longer afford to even buy plastic utensils people can use for their lunches? Both have happened at my company the past two weeks, so take your pick.

An old friend a few years ago founded her own citizen journalism Web site that has an admirable mix of residents from our hometown writing about local politics and Pakistani 20-somethings writing about the latest crisis in their country. I saw her last at a friend's wedding in the fall. Her father, a successful businessman and remarkably good columnist for the site, was also there and we talked for a several minutes. He said it was interesting how his daughter and I had both entered the news business. I replied how I was on the dying end of it -- newspapers -- and she was on the newly born end -- Web publications. He then said, "Well, which one hurts more, dying or being born, because they both hurt like hell?"

Dying definitely hurts more because there's no hope or excitement of what's to come. It's already passed. You see it everyone's eyes, everyday.